Just as Nick opened his mouth, an unfamiliar voice entered my ears. Boredom, apathy – who was that?!
My head turned around, as everyone looked at the door.
A boy who was busy writing on his phone, gazed at us with an extremely uncharismatic expression.
“Sorry...” he mumbled, as if he was forced to say it, and wandered towards the empty seat at the end of the room.
What a miserable creature.
Nobody said a thing, until. “Where the fuck have you been?!” Veezer yelled at him in anger.
“None of your business.”
“Okay, I'm gonna be roaming the whole game then,” cried Veezer in a childish tone.
Then there was a message popping up in the lobby:
----------------------------------------
Veezer: adc is here but cba playing xdd
CrimsonRider: ?
Bastiquez: u ok?
Elasticum: wtf XD
NickNax: sorry, dont mind him
NickNax: we can start in 2min
----------------------------------------
“Stop that; we are gonna play!” Nick, who was also part of the lobby as a spectator on his phone, gave Veezer an angry look as he was writing a message himself.
“Yea, as I said, I'm gonna roam,” Veezer replied again.
Holy shit, that's so annoying...
Marius and I exchanged knowing glances, as the atmosphere in the room shifted from anticipation to hatred.
The challenges of integrating into the team seemed more complex than I had anticipated, and the game hadn't even started.
To be fair, it didn't even feel like the other players themselves were integrated either.
Marius leaned over and whispered, "You'll get used to it. Just focus on your game, and try not to let the drama get to you."
Meanwhile Gregor didn't seem to care too much about what was going on, didn't even reply to Veezer's comments.
For some, that might make the impression that he's tilt-proof, but I wasn't so sure about that.
If you aren't passionate about something, then there's no reason to get mad in the first place.
“Ok, boys... I want us to try our best. Doesn't matter that it's just a scrim... Also, we want to make a good first impression on Noah, right?” It was weird hearing Nick talk in such a demanding tone, although he still kept his charm during it.
However, the reactions of the players instantly showed what I had assumed.
There was no sign of respect for his words whatsoever, except from Marius.
How long had they been playing together like this?!
It was basically an unbearable atmosphere – at every single moment.
Poor Marius, how did he even end up in such a team?
And much more important; how did he survive for so long?!
I would have gone mental boom in an instant.
Although I'm really the opposite of a tilter, if everything around me was burning I wouldn't just sit there and let the house crash down on me.
So first, I would do everything in my power to try and change it for the better, but if that didn't work, I'd run for my life.
I wasn't exactly the firefighter though, if you get my analogy here.
In other words; how would I – an introverted shy mess of a personality with all kinds of mental illnesses imaginable ever be able to solve problems such as this?!
I was pretty much a social disaster. The match hadn't even started, and I was already scared of most of my teammates because...
If they're already this toxic in real life; how nice were they going to be in-game?
And since we didn't have a coach, Janosch would take over draft, which didn't quite help with the problems developing earlier on.
Stolen story; please report.
“So, what does our mid-laner play?” Janosch sounded as if he was threatening me.
I'm right here, why don't you ask me directly? Also, didn't I hear this somewhere before already?
I glanced over at Nick, who didn't seem to understand why, and just gave me a thumbs up anyway.
“Hello?!”, Veezer yelled at me this time.
Great, It took me only 3 seconds to make the captain of the team hate me, congrats. Although it's probably not that hard to do with him.
“U-uhm... Artillery-mages...” I stuttered.
“Ar- what?! Can you speak up a bit more?” He sounded even more mad than before. “Ah, whatever, I'm just gonna turn the volume up...”
And I'm gonna your voice down, seriously, all this screaming is driving me crazy...
“So...?!”
“Artillery-mages like Lux, Ziggs, Xerath,” I said a bit louder this time. “And some control-mages.”
I would have liked to give more precise info, but I've heard one too many times that I was talking too much when it came to explaining something or stating my opinion.
And I expected the exact same from Veezer, if I kept talking.
“Okay, so just standard stuff...”
I nodded, although I didn't fully agree.
Yes, 'control-mages' were played a lot in competitive play, but artillery-mages were rather rare to be seen.
Also I didn't play any of the battle-mages, like Cassiopeia, Ryze and so on, nor did I play assassins.
Most people expected that from a mid-laner, but I just couldn't play those champions anywhere close to the level my main-champions were at.
It had often been a problem, especially in the case my jungler wanted to play something like Karthus, which was really hard to draft around with my champion pool.
As the draft started we were basically doing otp-bans, by banning out the enemies most played champions, as we didn't have a specific strategy in mind.
“So what do we first pick?”, Veezer asked after doing our 3rd ban.
Maybe it would have been good to start talking about it earlier, but it was just a scrim so I tried not cry about it in my mind.
For a moment there was silence – kind of understandable. I mean, who would want to first pick when nobody puts even the smallest amount of trust in each other.
Unless there was an insanely broken champion, it would always be disadvantageous for the one showing their pick, sacrificing themselves for the greater good.
“We're red side, idiot." Finn was right, but his tone wasn't.
By this point I was slowly getting used to it, as sad as that sounds, it was exactly as Marius said.
But I knew that besides getting used to it, I would never be happy with it.
"Well, it's only gonna be for this weekend – just keep going forward, Noah.", said the clear voice in my head again.
By this point I might aswell start calling her Lux, although that made it feel even weirder for me.
I mean... talking to a voice in your head? It for sure wasn't the normal type of inner voice; I was sure about that.
“We still need to first pick something, doesn't matter which side,” Janosch replied, for once not expanding the banter.
As the enemy locked in Maokai as first pick, he raised his voice again. “If nobody makes a call, I will. Pick Sivir and Rek'sai!”
Sivir + Rek'sai? What the fuck is that?!
“Sivir first pick?! Are you drunk?!” Gregor started laughing in a mix of amusement and anger – a deadly combination when it comes to fueling the fury of other's.
In all of the drama we had lost track of time and the countdown of locking in our pick started.
5...
4...
3...
“Make a call, I need to lock soon,” Marius said in a demanding but respectful tone.
Janosch: “I said Sivir and-”
2...
Gregor: “Pick me Jinx-”
Finn: “Lock Xin'zhao-”
1...
Marius:“Xin is banned!”
Nick: “Guys, calm down!”
0...
Janosch: “SIVIR! SIVIR!”
It was pure chaos. Where the hell was I?!
Did I apply for the wrong team?
Was this by any change the kindergarten?!
I really couldn't tell any difference...
From this point on I couldn't shake of the feeling that my journey with this team was going to be anything but fun.
I had to face reality; this was in fact going to be a pain in the ass.